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Dario Villalba Biography

San Sebastian, 1939

Spanish painter born in San Sebastian in February 22th, 1939. Started studying Law and Philosophy in Madrid, but then he shifted to painting in 1956.

After working with an abstact language, he came back to figurative painting.

His presence in the Venice Biennale in 1970 triggered his international success, that kept consolidating during the decade. Since 1972 the tragic elemments become more evident, setting painting aside to use black and white photographs along with the international tendencies - Baldesary, Boltansky- that were developing in the same direction, composing and decomposing images, but keeping an expressionist will. In the mid-seventies he came back to painting and the eighties led to a new stage of synthesis of previous experiences, integrating photography and painting, figures and abstraction.

In 1984 he's granted with the Premio Nacional de Artes Plasticas.